I don't think the employment situation has ever been worse in my lifetime. At last tally, there were maybe three people on my block that still had jobs, including me. The stunning thing is the amount of union people who have been laid off in the past few months. One of my neighbors got turned down for a job selling knives door to door. Too many applicants. Convenience stores won't even take your applications anymore. Anyone that is telling you the economy and/or employment is improving doesn't know d!ck.

I guess you only blame Congress when the Dems control the purse strings.

Shocker. We all thought you had principles.

The Rep congress passed a budget that attempted to get spending under control. The Senate never even brought it up for a vote. In fact, the Demwit Senate hasn't passed a budget since your Hero took over.

The Rep congress passed a budget that attempted to get spending under control. The Senate never even brought it up for a vote. In fact, the Demwit Senate hasn't passed a budget since your Hero took over.

Feel free to blame anyone you want.

If the GOP wins the Senate this fall will you immediately blame them for every dollar of deficit spending?

This is my signature. There are many others like it, but this one is mine.

[republicans] This is still a result of part-time Christmas season hires [republicans]

i think it's good that hiring is up in the service industry, and also that more people who had stopped looking for work have started looking again.

service industry jobs pay small wages. those people take those wages and purchase goods produced and manufactured in other countries, usually from a wal-mart type superstore because the prices are lower.

what we need here in the united states is factory, manufacturing jobs. they pay higher wages, they are sustainable jobs, and they make goods that we can sell to others and our own. real goods that people purchase...not solar panels and electric cars. everyday things that people purchase regularly.

the united states needs factories building things, with competitive wages (meaning not union wages) that build competitively priced goods. that entails the epa and other regulatory agencies to police the production, but not be a barrier by being too strict.

“You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift, help small men by tearing down big men, strengthen the weak by weakening the strong, lift the wage-earner by pulling down the wage-payer, help the poor by destroying the rich, establish security on borrowed money, or help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.” —William J. H. Boetcker

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Employers added 120,000 jobs in the month, the Labor Department reported Friday, falling far short of economists' expectations. The number marked a significant slowdown in hiring from February, when the economy added 240,000 jobs.

"It's discouraging that job growth was half of what it had been the previous month," said Christine Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project.

Job growth of around 120,000 is just about enough to keep up with population growth, and is therefore more like "treading water" than a major improvement, Owens said.

Meanwhile, the unemployment rate fell to 8.2% as the labor force shrank by 164,000 workers, mostly due to white women leaving the job market.

Employers added 120,000 jobs in the month, the Labor Department reported Friday, falling far short of economists' expectations. The number marked a significant slowdown in hiring from February, when the economy added 240,000 jobs.

"It's discouraging that job growth was half of what it had been the previous month," said Christine Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project.

Job growth of around 120,000 is just about enough to keep up with population growth, and is therefore more like "treading water" than a major improvement, Owens said.

Meanwhile, the unemployment rate fell to 8.2% as the labor force shrank by 164,000 workers, mostly due to white women leaving the job market.

Recall that back in 2009, White House economists Jared Bernstein and Christina Romer used their old-fashioned Keynesian model to predict how the $800 billion stimulus would affect employment. According to their model—as displayed in the above chart, updated—unemployment should be around 5.8% today.

In contrast, white men have also recently left the labor force, but not nearly as dramatically in March. And blacks of both genders have been wading back into the job market. (The Labor Department doesn't collect seasonally adjusted data on Hispanics and Asians).

Why are white women leaving? Unfortunately, it's impossible to tell from the Labor Department's data. Reasons could include going back to school, retiring, staying home to take care of family or having a disability.

Or perhaps they're just giving up on the job market altogether.

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse." -- John Stuart Mill